Dex's attacks subtract ninjas from his side. Ryu's Energy Ball Attack adds ninjas to his side. The idea is to restore the balance.

Example:

3 Ninjas on Left, 1 Ninja on Right: 3 ≠ 1

Dex subtracts one Ninja from his side: 3 - 1 ≠ 1

Ryu adds one Ninja to his side: 3 - 1 = 1 + 1

When the Balance is restored, all the Ninjas will disappear, and Dex and Ryu can move on.

After several waves of Ninjas, Dex and Ryu will split up for a boss battle against a quadratic equation. Attack the quadratic equation up on the sidewalk, then, run down to the street when it rises up to slam down into the ground.

As you level up, the going gets tougher, as the Ninjas and Bosses get stronger.

You start the game with 6 "Bros" and lose a Bro every time Dex or Ryu take damage from the ninjas, who throw mathematical operators at you, or if you get crushed by the boss. When all your bros are gone, your game is over.

Math Kickers has a bug in it that causes a secret rank to occur ([]ber/Uber-Pope) See here.

If the player uses Polar Coordinates while a ninja is being added from Ryu's attack, Polar Coordinates will destroy all but one of the ninjas on Dex's side, and all but one of the ninjas not including the one being added on Ryu's side. The result is one ninja on Dex's side but two on Ryu's side. The game will automatically reduce the player's "Bro" count to zero as the screen is now unsolvable without special moves.

Math Kickers has a bug that occurs frequently in the game, where it will stop responding to directional buttons and attacks, only allowing you to pause or quit the game.

When this happens, quit out of the current game (on Math Kickers) and quit out of the Fun Machine to go back to Strong Bad's room. Restart the game, and it should work (for now).

PC and Playstation 3 versions only: Pausing the game and entering the command for Polar Coordinates will cause Polar Coordinates to be performed as soon as the game is unpaused. Since enemy attacks are frozen while paused, and Dex and Ryu are invincible when performing Polar Coordinates, this essentially allows the player to get an infinite amount of points.

Sometimes, when playing the Polar Coordinates attack, the Polar Coordinates attack logo will appear and Strong Bad will say "Polar Coordinates!..." but the ninjas will not freeze and remain the same.

Also, when playing the Polar Coordinates attack, ninjas will disappear to leave one per side, but they will not cancel. You will need to play the Polar Coordinates attack again to get rid of them.